----

Sean, At Hogwarts

-----

It was a disaster zone, as I’d known it was going to be. Dumbledore’s body lay burnt and ruined against the wall of the tower. The rest of the corridor was shattered beyond recognition, some portions appearing to spiral weightlessly away into an endless abyss while others were simply burning unquenchably. Of Grindelwald there was no sign, which I took as a relief. But there was also no sign of the headmaster’s phoenix, which did surprise me- wouldn’t it come to heal him? I knelt next to the ancient old wizard, clearly breathing his last. He tried to muster a smile for me. “Sean. Good. There is hope yet.”

I nodded at him. “You’ve done your part, Albus. Where’s Severus? Matt should be here with the thunderbirds any minute, we need to get ready.”

He shook his head. “Last seen. Heading to the dungeons. Do not know. His intent.” He reached out with his one good arm and gripped at the front of my robes, urgently. “Sean. Before you go- a contest of strength. For my wand.” He looked desperately at my face, eyes searching. He’s talking about the Elder Wand. Another story element- an unbeatable weapon, but something of a cursed one, as I recalled, only transferring through contests of spellcraft.

I stood up and away, uncertain. “Two months ago, when we first met, you worried about what you’d be unleashing, if you armed me with your knowledge and sent me out into the worlds. I should be leaping at this opportunity, but now-” I hesitated to say it, but he deserved to hear it from me. “Now I think you may have been right.”

He nodded weakly, summoning his strength. “When I was a young man, I thought as you did. That if I were strong enough, if I believed fiercely enough, that my problems would be solved. That I would no longer have to compromise myself. But I learned. As you have learned- are learning.” He trailed off.

I tried to prompt him. “You learned that greater strength only brings greater challenges- there’s never going to be a time when I’m strong enough to make it easy to do the right thing. Sometimes it’s hard to know what the right thing even is. I thought it was right to fight a minor evil, the immorality of the story of this world. It was right. But the damage it did...” It had nearly destroyed the world. Might still, if this zombie plague wasn’t countered. I reached out with my magic, tried to heal him. The destruction was too deep. Grindelwald was gone, erased from existence, but he had killed his oldest foe in the process.

He coughed, invigorated just a little by my magic. “You did the right thing at every turn and still you are losing. Would you have been better served to allow smaller ills to slip by, unremarked upon? It is not moral relativism to say yes- an evil is still an evil, no matter how minute. But we cannot solve the smaller problems at the cost of the world itself. Now you understand a little better, the compromises we must make. That I have made.” I did. I got what he was saying.

But I couldn’t accept it. “There had to be a better way. Than this? Than keeping the whole world ignorant? You kept weapons from madmen, to be sure. But you kept healing from the sick, and youth from the aged. You used children as your pawns, over and over again. How can the world ever end in anything but ruin, if we refuse to do what’s right, to unlock the power to make it right, for fear of giving our fellow man the power to destroy themselves? I rejected it when my wife said it. I reject it still.”

He smiled ruefully. “That is your right, having learned some small portion of the price of power. Forgive an old man his ramblings- even at life’s end I find myself compelled towards pedagogy. Perhaps in time, you will change your mind. Either way- now you know the difference between what is right and what is easy. Do right by that knowledge. You must be the final owner.” Exhausted, without moving any other part of his body, he raised his wand arm in a dueling position.

I met him, one stunner versus another, and our spells locked- energy channeling back and forth. I thought at first he was letting me win, as my magic overtook his- but gradually I realized it was the last of his strength leaving his frame. As the spell-lock flashed back up the channel into his arm, he leaned back, eyes closing. “I hope you prove me wrong, Sean. Save the world,” he breathed, “ all the worlds.” My spell hit home, but there was nothing left in him to stun. He was dead.

I took the Elder Wand from his fingers- it came willingly. “All of them” I said, standing over his body. “But I’ll do it my way.”

----

I found Snape in his laboratory, with the pensieve. He was slumped in his chair, looking barely more alive than Dumbledore had. He had a cauldron bubbling nearby, and his eyes were glowing green. The body of some nameless wizard was splayed out on the floor before his desk. “Oh, that can’t be a good sign,” I muttered.

Voldemort heard me coming. “Finally! Kill him, you fool, and free me.” We hadn’t had the best teacher/student relationship in the last 4 days, but I knew that for the Dark Lord this was practically begging me on his knees.

I shook my head. “You two walked away from the end of the fight- forced me to leave us exposed. Why? To come down here for a spot of murder? What was your game plan?”

I expected Voldemort to prevaricate but it was Snape who spoke, cutting through the chatter. His words were slurred, coming through the thick haze of whatever meme was burrowing through his mind. “He- wanted to run, tried to take my mind. I fought him. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I’ve known that since-” since the duel in the hallway, I finished silently. He continued. “I had to try something to fix it. Help isn’t coming. That was clear.” No it isn’t clear, you idiot. You let him get to you.

“He exposed us to the meme,” hissed Voldemort, enraged. “Used your bottled memories of the damned thing- forced me to counter it or serve. I do not serve.”

Hope flared in my heart. Voldemort had been so cagey about helping, these last few days. Perhaps endangering him directly would help. “So you countered it? Is that what the green is?” For some reason my eyes were drawn to the body. A horrible suspicion took root, creeping up my spine with a chill. “ No. You didn’t. You motherfucker.”

Pride tinged the voice of the Dark Lord. “Countered and more. ‘Violence is never the answer,’ she says! Wait until she sees my answer to her! Look, look into the cauldron.” I could see a swirling mess in there, but not the meme- so I looked deeper.

It was the scene outside. Voldemort’s counter-meme was spreading among the encroaching armies- magically transmitted, by the look of it. Those infected were not cured, oh no- their eyes flared green and they fought everyone, tearing at one another with bestial savagery. But their most vicious attacks were reserved for those still showing blue- those they swarmed and converted or killed. They were staining the grass of hogwarts red with blood. It looked black when illuminated by the eerie green glow from their eyes. Voldemort was still ranting. “King of savages, she says! I will be the immortal ruler of a new breed of mankind, once the remainder of this pathetic school has been wiped away and the bleed of magic has stopped. They are savages in truth, now- the ones she strove to protect. But they are also another step along my path to immortality. My will encompasses nations, now! We will see how she feels about my methods when she sees this !”

He’d horcruxed the goddamn meme. Some portion of his soul was out there preying on the infected. A superpredator version of the memetic that only attacked other infected. That might have made me feel safer, if the entire world weren’t infected by now. Those it took were much closer to real zombies, mindless and feral. “If that gets out into the wider universe there won’t be a soul left alive anywhere, ” I snarled. My gun was in my shaking hand, to my surprise, levelled at his face on Snape’s shoulder. In the scene in the cauldron, the doors to Hogwarts were wide open. They were still coming inside. If I wanted to get back to the kids I had seconds at most to leave this place. But I couldn’t go without taking retribution. Couldn’t just leave him here. I’d killed once today, by sheer necessity. Would I kill now in cold blood? Was that right, or was it easy? Snape looked up at me. The real Snape, from deep within the memetic compulsion that he was still battling. I could see the tears running down his cheeks. Did he think that made this alright? To compound one mistake with another until the whole world was bleeding, as long as he felt bad about it? I paused in my train of thought. “I’m not even sure if it’s you I’d have to kill to get justice, or me,” I said at last, and lowered the pistol. I turned to leave but said over my shoulder. “If killing you actually ended Voldemort, I’d pull that trigger. But it won’t. Don’t mistake this for mercy. We’re going to make this right, Severus. Damn us both, but this isn’t the end for your story.” If only I knew how to fix it. I left him there. With the Dark Lord on his shoulder, he was unlikely to die. And he might serve as a distraction when his monsters poured through the castle.

----

1 hour later

----

We didn’t give up on non-lethal measures but the body count soared anyway, by the end. There was no glory in it, no thrill of combat. They came and we massacred them, had to. The green zombies by and large had abandoned their magic, once they had subdued every blue within range. Some of them still retained enough capacity for spells but mostly they just tore at us, and each other, and everything else- an endless swarm of countless tens of thousands, coming from every direction to the last place on earth where the uninfected still fought, where Voldemort’s will demanded we be murdered, and he be freed. Roy and Nina and Charlie and Mac were my holdouts, and I quickly learned to value their Haley-granted near limitless combat prowess as they guarded the children on the roof with grim efficiency. But they didn’t have the resources to disinfect the infected. So we held and we waited. There was no sign of Snape, but I didn’t doubt for a moment I’d see him again.

They tried to knock the zombies out, but anything vulnerable was instantly torn apart by the maddened horde of green-eyed monsters. The kids fought as well, when the occasional straggler got past them. The later-year students were especially effective, but they were increasingly traumatized and the number of attackers was endless. Roy had run out of ammunition long since and was relying on a pair of curved blades. I was personally on the ragged edge, my ability to shape magic long past exhausted, even with the Elder Wand in hand to lend ever more elaborate form and depth to the spell-diagrams I carved in the aether. Moody had never returned from wherever he’d gone with McGonagall. That was fine by me- I didn’t want to look him in the eye, to see what he thought of me, when he saw the blood that coated the upper floor of the tower. I hadn’t taken down his traps in time. In the end, I’d added more of my own. There were just too many.

When Haley’s chosen finally came, it was almost an anticlimax. I thought it was the first roll of thunder from the clouds that had gathered overhead. But no- it was a huge motorcycle, flying through the air. It alighted on the tower and a towering hairy giant of a man hopped off, punting away nearby zombies and followed closely by a fresh-faced young man in half-plate and a tabard, with an icon of a golden dragon on the front. “You must be Matt,” I gasped.

He nodded, grasping the situation, and threw out something that hit every non-zombie on the roof. I felt strength and energy rushing back into me, renewing me. Everyone I could see was blinking and standing up a little bit straighter as well. I poured my renewed magic into the ward holding the door to the lower levels shut, but the sheer weight on it would tear it down again before long. “Hope you brought a lot more than that,” I said, not trying to sound harsh but really resenting the entire framing of this eleventh-hour rescue. “If you’d been here even two hours ago…” so much of this might not have happened.

He looked apologetic. “I had to climb a mountain freehand. Haley doesn’t set easy jobs in front of us.” I almost chuckled at that. You sound like one of her college students. “But yeah, I think I have something that’ll help. That Swooping Evil venom, carried by my buddies up above-” he gestured at the clouds and I sighed with relief.

“Everyone get ready! The rain’s going to Obliviate everything that gets caught in it,” I called.

“Everything within several hundred miles,” Matt added helpfully. “Once I explained the situation the whole family wanted to get involved.” Above us in the heavy clouds I could see the flash of immense feathered wings. The thunder really was rumbling, now. The survivors of the massacre at Hogwarts threw up their magical rain shields, and rushed to the edges of the tower as the storm began to break. I simply sank to my knees. The rain came.

As it hit the fields around Hogwarts, I could see the light winking from the eyes of the infected. Voldemort’s soul shard is still going to be out there, though. It will take years to cleanse it entirely. Most of them fell unconscious where they lay. A few stood, dazedly trying to understand why the last five days of their lives were suddenly a blur. It should have been triumphant, a moment of joy and rescue- the world, at least this corner of it, saved at last. But it didn’t feel that way to me. I watched the water mix with the blood on the flagstones of the astronomy tower, and only felt loss. Dumbledore’s words were still echoing in my mind. “So many dead. Why did any of this happen? I just wanted to learn.” Is this a disaster I’m perpetuating by fighting against narrative tides? Endless conflict and horror and death? The cold and wet was soaking through my torn and ragged robes.

The first Cleric of Haley sat down next to me. “You couldn’t have known how things would shake out when you started down this path. You certainly couldn’t have predicted a zombie invasion. And you can’t take on the burden of everything that happened here. You’re responsible for yourself, and then the people around you, and then- ”

I rolled my eyes. “Are you seriously going to proselytize to me about the woman I married? I know her philosophy better than you, my dude. I couldn’t have known the exact outcome, but this is genre fiction. I should have known that a training montage doesn’t end without some kind of fight. But…” I gestured at the carnage. “This? No. This feels too grim.”

He held up his hands. “Okay, you got me, on the philosophy angle. But you have to admit it’s compelling. You couldn’t have known the Concept was coming. But you survived it, and you kept them safe-” he gestured at Harry and Hermione and the hundreds of other students huddled together under their umbrellas and the sympathetic gazes of the last few adult witches and wizards. “And there’s a big chunk of the rest of the world that might live on, because of our actions here. And she isn’t even involved, yet. I have a feeling this story isn’t over.”

I struggled to my feet, my own words to Severus echoing back at me and filling me with a renewed determination. “In that sense at least, you’re absolutely correct. Here, this is your time turner. Roy, Nina, Mac, Charlie get over here.” They came to me and I held up my own. “We can’t change what happened here- events lock. So wherever you come out, assume you need to get to the South tower a little earlier than two hours ago, without overtly interfering with anyone not on your backwards jaunt. Understood?” They nodded. “We can’t change what happened here. But we can make the rest of this a little less bleak. We can do better.”

I looked out over the lip of the astronomy tower at the tens of thousands who hadn’t died gradually pulling themselves together, in the fields below. This might be the only place in the multiverse where the Coordinator’s zombie narrative lost, today. I can be proud of that, at least. “Let’s travel through time, ride a dragon, and fight a zombie horde for a second time with an assault on the Ministry of Magic. Just another day in paradise.”

But when the moment came and the tiny golden hourglasses were flipped, it wasn’t my hand that made the first spin. If I’d been paying more attention instead of psyching myself up, I might have noticed Hermione slipping up beside me and placing her hand through a loop of the time turner’s chain. As it was, I didn’t know a thing about it until I turned on the suddenly near-deserted roof of the tower, and found her staring at me defiantly.

“It’s not your world to save,” she said, shedding the invisibility cloak she’d been wearing and staring at me as if that was that. “No arguing. We have a flight to catch.” There was an edge of fear in her voice, and desperation in her gaze- she was a young girl, after all, and she wasn’t used to defying adults, even if I had been a kid just days before.

But I wasn’t really listening. “Where are the others?” Then reality caught up to me. “ Shit. Magic items don’t work for you if you’re not part of their environment. I already knew that. SHIT! ” It had been months since I’d had to think about cross-story interference. Now the Pathfinder gang was caught two hours in the future. No doubt they’d beeline for the Ministry anyway, but Haley and I would be making the initial assault alone. There was no way I was taking Hermione.

She saw the lay of my thoughts and got indignant. “You are not leaving me here to go through that nightmare a second time! It’s my world and my right if I want to risk my life for it.”

I really, really did not want to argue with a child about this. The possibility of just stunning her and leaving her here under the cloak crossed my mind- but she was right, this place would see too much action to leave her helpless. I tried an appeal to emotion. “You could hide anywhere in this castle. You could hide in the Room of Requirement, they’ll never find you there. Hermione, I can’t take you. You’re not ready to defend yourself in the kind of fight we’re heading towards, and I just lost the five heaviest hitters I had. You are-” I hesitated. “You were my first student. The fact that you’re still alive right now is just about the only true victory I’ve managed to pull from this disaster. Please don’t throw that away.”

She shook her head. “I’m not going to die. You keep saying this is a story. If that’s true, I’ve made an emotional connection to you but I haven’t contributed anything yet. I have some role to play.”

God damn narrative. That was ridiculous and I told her so. “Just by acknowledging that, you dare the narrative to subvert it. Your whole purpose could be to get fridged, just to motivate me in some great moment of danger.” I couldn’t believe I was even having this argument. “ No, Hermione. Teacher to student. Adult to child.” Softer, I pleaded. “I’ve made so many mistakes. Walk away from this and live.” It might have had more weight if I hadn’t spent the last two months acting like a carefree eleven-year-old child around her. She brushed it off, and was about to say more, when a great golden head crashed down next to us.

“I was waiting at the South Tower as instructed but I could hear the two of you shouting from all the way over there. Are we going, or not?” asked my wife. Good lord, was she- I looked over the edge of the tower. Yep, she was sitting on the ground. She was taller than the castle these days.

I sighed. “Please tell this little girl that you won’t take her into a climactic battle.”

Hermione crossed her arms and stared at Haley, daring her to say the words. “I have as much right as either of you. More. My friend is the one who almost died. My school is the one that broke the narrative. I’m the one who saw the villain’s weakness in the mirror. You keep trying to make this story about you because you can’t imagine anyone else being more critical. She gets it-” she nodded to that great golden snout. “She knows it can’t always be about her. It’s true- I might die, if I go with you. But…” she trailed off, looking away across the grounds to the distant wards, where the Concept had begun to stream across, beginning the invasion again. “But I might have died today, or a week ago. My life can’t just be me, running from death. If it’s going to come, l’d rather meet it, and make it mean something. Even if it is just as inspiration for the people who do end up saving the day. That would be enough.”

There was a burst of light and heat and a great caw that resounded with courage and joy, and the mystery of where Fawkes had got off to was finally solved. He alighted on her shoulder and she stared at him with wonder and tears in her eyes. “He says he agrees with me.” The bird cocked its’ head at me and seemed to be waiting for an answer. One last message from Dumbledore- preemptive, even. Cunning old bastard.

Haley shook her head and I nearly had to duck out of the way of her giant, swinging snout. “I’ve heard too many inspirational speeches from children who’ve had to face far more than they should, before their time. But I think she’s right, Sean. Your power and mine, it can’t override the wills of these people, it can’t shield them from their mistakes without turning their story into our story.” She moved her head back and really looked at Hermione- the little witch shrank a bit, in that gaze. “All I’ve ever wanted to use my power for, is to enable others to save themselves. What is this, if not that?”

Listening to her was always compelling, but the practical part of me rebelled.“ I’m a hundred year old gunslinger who just beat some of the greatest wizards in the world three-on-one. You weigh a hundred tons and you breathe fire! Haley, she’s eleven. If we toss her straight into the fight just because she’s incredibly brave, I don’t see how we’re morally any better than Dumbledore, with all his child endangering plans.” Fawkes cawed at me in disapproval. I ignored him. “I’ve never believed the world revolves around me. But I’ll be damned if I let a child lead a charge when I could have shielded her.”

She leaned in and nuzzled me. I fought to keep my balance. “I know. You’re hung up on the reality of the situation and you have a strong sense of ethics and it’s why I love you. I think you’re expecting me to override you, maybe hoping for it, deep down, to absolve you of responsibility. But she’s your pupil, this was your narrative in part before I came in. If you won’t take her, I’ll respect that.”

I crossed my arms. “There’s a but coming.”

She smiled. “But you know there’s power here. Our lives run on stories, now. And there’s more at stake than the life of any one of us. She could be the turning point at some coming moment. What is the line you’ll draw, between what’s acceptable and what isn’t to save all the universes? I know where my boundaries are. Is this really yours? Or is it that you fear a loss you’d feel responsible for?”

I’ll do it my way. Damn me, I’d said those very words hadn’t I. “This was what you meant wasn’t it, you bathrobe-wearing prick,” I muttered to the ghost of a man who, in this time-turned moment, was still alive below us. “I always judged your actions with Harry based on reality. If this were real life none of this would apply, and you’d have been a monster to send him where you did. But you knew it was a story. That the weights were different. That sometimes a child isn’t just a child.” I looked at her, standing on the wind-whipped balcony with a phoenix on her shoulder and passion in her eyes. “And the right thing to do is the hardest one of all. To stand aside and clear her path.”

I looked at my wife, smiling at me with a look in her eyes like she’d known all along what decision I’d come to. I jerked my chin at Hermione to fall in and walked to the harness hanging from Haley’s enormous neck. “I’m not Dumbledore. She won’t go without every protection we can give her. Let’s go save the goddamn world.”